To the Gypsy
As instructed, finger (note the singular) to the key board. Basic.!
Basic was cut out of later courses to save time and money. But the US was not at war and would not budge from the stipulated full training course of three stages and two hundred hours. Great Britain, of course was crying out for pilots. Lord Beaverbrook had been a terrific success as Minister of Production and the men and women in the factories were working miracles. We actually had more aircraft at the end of the "Battle of Britain" than at the beginning but pilots were grieviously shortcoming.
So off to Cochran Field near Macon, Georgia we went in Greyhound Buses. Macon was a much larger town than Albany and was also very conveniently situated for the Georgia State College for Women...but that's another story. We were now under the complete control of the US Army Air Corps. No gentle civilian Instructors but fierce looking ,Army First and Second Lieutenants with weird and exotic names, some of them very Germanic. We were told to call them Lootenants... No effete leftenancy in the US Army Air Corps .
Basic was the Vultee BT13A, a huge, ugly, underpowered monoplane with a fixed undercariage. I remember it as heavy on the controls and very difficult in the aerobatics so beloved of the training in the US. But.. it did have instruments, so we were indulged in the luxury of an artificial horizon, airspeed indicator and altimeter for the first time. In retrospect it was wonderful to have been taught to fly only by the seat of our pants but it was a luxury that the US was soon to find they could not afford and Basic disappeared from the itinerary. But we added to our hours and were introduced to the very good custom of two cadets flying together to practice without the eagle eyes of an Instructor upon them all the time.
The time passed quickly and towards the end of the course the "scuttlebutt" (US for a vague rumour) was that we were going back to our beloved Albany for our Advanced training. Not Darr Aero Tech but a brand new military Airfield called "Turner Field" keeping to the US custom of naming their fields after Us flying personnel. I never did find out who Lt. Turner was.
We had some leave...furlough... before going back to Albany and the cinema contacts on my Father's side of the family arranged for me to spend a week in Miami and contacted the USO , the equivalent of our ENSA to see that I had a good time. That I did and the best part of it was meeting and dancing with Rita Hayworth at a Miami Hotel ( together with a few hundred more US forces, I hasten to add.) Nevertheless as the orchestra played "Amapola" and I took that beautiful woman around the floor I would not have changed places with anyone in the world. By coincidence many,many years later, the Aga Khan was a passenger on a flight that I was taking down to Kinshasa. Rita Hayworth had eventually married Prince Aly Khan and I mentioned that I had met her to the Aga Khan. He said that Rita was a wonderful woman and very popular in the family and that the press had been very cruel to her at the time.
So back to the welcoming arms of Albany it was and we found ourselves in brand new barracks with all "mod cons" and the Harvard to cope with. It was not an easy aeroplane to fly but what a difference to anything that we had encountered. It was easily identifiable by it's characteristic "buzz" or high pitched drone caused by, some say , the propellor being a fraction too long so that the tips were approaching the speed of sound. It is true that they were modified by cutting off some of the tip leaving them square edged and thus giving them another sound altogether. For the first time we had to remember to put our wheels down before landing and it even looked like a fighter if you stretched your imagination a little. It's main disadvantage was a tail wheel that was partially steerable by the rudder pedals and, if one was not extremely careful on landing, the whole aeroplane would turn through 360 degrees which was violently disliked by the Instructors and was certain to curtail one's leisure at the weekend.
Georgia, from the air, was predominantly red from the characteristic colour of the earth or clay and there were plenty of good fields around that we used as practice grounds for forced landings. Your Instructor would suddenly pull back the throttle when you were about six thousand feet and not expecting it and woe betide you if you were forced to use it before you put the aeroplane down in one of those fields.. The fields had another use, however. It was common practice to arrange with the current girl friend to rendezvous at one of them and you would land and take them for a "spin" as we used to call it. The penalty for being caught was instant expulsion from the course which only made the whole thing more savoury. A certain Irish Corporal had made such a date with his girl friend at one of the fields but was so excited at the thought of it that he forgot to put his wheels down and slid along on his belly in front of the startled girl who thought that he had done it to "show off". His reflexes were fantastic though. He grabbed his microphone and called up "Mayday, Mayday, This is Army plane 100" he said " My engine has cut and I am going to try and land in ... " naming the field where he was sitting. Back came the reply from Turner Tower, as our home base was called. "Keep a cool head boy and do not, repeat, do not put your wheels down." This was standard practice in a real emergency to avoid tipping over when you landed on rough ground or in one of the many swamps. It also kept the landing distance shorter and only bent an easily replaceable propellor. Paddy actually got a "green" endorsement in his log book for outstanding airmanship. I don't know what his girl friend gave him.
Another story that went into the "Line Book" as it was called in the RAF. "Shooting a line" was boasting of a personal feat and was frowned upon, was when the Tower was trying to contact one of the cadets in the vicinity. "Army 500 this is Turner tower . Are you receiving me ?" was repeated several times without success. Eventually the Tower thought that he could see him "Army plane 500 ,is that you over the field ? If you are receiving me, waggle your wings,.Over" Back came the reply in that clipped British accent that the Americans could never imitate. "Turner Tower this is Army plane 500. If you are receiving me , waggle your Tower." No reply but he was "walking" that weekend. Another time the Tower was called by a British voice that said "Turner Tower this is Army plane 101. I am out of petrol what should I do ?" There was a hurried flurry of words then one of the Instructors was hurriedly summoned to the microphone. "OK Army Plane 101. Don't panic. Keep cool and calm. Put the nose down in a gentle glide and look around. Try and find one of the emergency fields. What is your height and position ? The cool British voice sounded rather puzzled " I am sitting here on the tarmac waiting for the petrol truck, Sir" The "Sir" didn't stop him walking the weekend away. And so it went on